Home comforts are lifting Sheffield Wednesday towards play-offs

Rewinding the clock to 2014-15 is an excruciating exercise for Wednesdayities; a time when the club’s vital statistics on home soil, compounded by a playing surface that was one of the most ravaged in the land, were thoroughly lamentable.

Five league wins at Hillsborough and a mere 16 goals scored – the joint worse home goals tally in the entire Football League along with York City – represented a quite pitiful return.

What a difference a year makes, with the Owls’ scoring goals for fun and having already picked up eight Hillsborough league wins. Just Middlesbrough and Hull City have won more home games so far in 2015-16.

Entertainment allied to substance by way of home wins is suddenly de rigueur at S6 under their exotically-named Portuguese coach.

Tuesday night’s haul of three goals took the Owls’ Championship account at Hillsborough up to 25, the joint best home return in the division with Burnley ahead of last night’s action.

At the same stage of last season, Wednesday had notched an embarrassing six goals, with stoic endurance the order of the day for home supporters.

Some would say the events of this season are providing the perfect karma with the 3-2 victory over Bolton representing their fourth straight win in all competitions at Hillsborough, where they have not been beaten in 12 matches since August 29.

For his part, Carlos Carvalhal is just happy that his side are fulfilling his remit of reconnecting with Wednesday supporters in terms of style, something that the club’s fans have always prized over the years. Crucially, they are now marrying it to an end product, sitting in seventh place.

Carvalhal, whose side host Leeds United in an eagerly-anticipated televised home Yorkshire derby on Saturday, said: “We are doing very well at Hillsborough. When I first arrived here, my first goal was to play good, attacking football at home. I want to score goals. I am a coach who prefers to win 5-4 than 1-0.

“Clean-sheet translation doesn’t exist in my country, so we don’t care too much about that. Of course, we don’t want to concede goals, but if we score three and win, then I’m happy.

“We are playing attacking football and scoring lots of goals. I don’t know what position we have in the rankings, but there are probably only three or four teams who have scored more than us in the competitions.

“Our fans are very happy with the football we are playing and scoring goals. All opponents who come here to Hillsborough have respect for how we play. We are winning and scoring lots of goals. The fans have also played their part in creating a very positive environment.”

That said, Tuesday night’s display against Bolton was not without considerable glitches, with the Lancastrians – without an away win since Easter Monday – belying their lowly status to pose considerable trouble for the hosts in an entertaining spectacle.

Wednesday’s fates were precarious until Gary Hooper, in the penultimate game of his current loan spell, blasted home a clinically-taken winner on 77 minutes – having earlier put the hosts ahead for a second time.

The Norwich City forward’s future is up for discussion, with many keen for him to stay, Carvalhal included.

Owls defender Vincent Sasso counts himself among that number – and not just because Hooper bailed him and his defensive team-mates out on Tuesday night.

Speaking about Hooper’s key contribution to the Bolton win, he said: “Everybody hopes he will stay because he is a really, really good player.

“We need this kind of player if we want to do great.

“We know that up front, we have some amazing players in Nando (Fernando Forestieri) and Lucas (Joao), even Atty (Nuhiu).

“Here, it was Hooper and it was really good for us. He did really well.”

With the second part of this week’s Hillsborough triple-header negotiated – albeit not in total comfort – Wednesday’s sights are set on providing the icing on the cake at home to Leeds.

Frenchman Sasso, who lined up in the reverse game at Elland Road, would dearly love to play his part again, having quickly appreciated that claiming the bragging rights in this particular derby fixture occupies a special place in the hearts of Wednesdayities.

It is perhaps second only in importance to victory over Steel City foes Sheffield United.

Sasso added: “I played the whole game against Leeds and the atmosphere was amazing.

“I hope we will win this game because this is a derby and obviously this is really important for the club and supporters.

“I hope the fans will be massive.

“But we already know they will be there to push the team and it is going to be great.”